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SILICON VALLEY, JANUARY, 2001. Life as we once e-knew it has changed -- utterly. The venture capitalists' eternal lament -- too much money chasing too few good deals -- reached its ultimate expression when the industry announced last fall that it had amassed $1 trillion but couldn't find a single, fundable new idea. Soon after, a freak earthquake cleaved what had been Silicon Valley into an island, its apex on Menlo Park's Sand Hill Road.
The high-tech crowd might have swum to the mainland, but nobody could bear to leave all that money behind. Bill Gates sent an e-mail cheerily suggesting that Silicon Island simply relieve a few Third World nations' debts and close up shop. "You first," shot back Scott McNealy, who cc:'d the Justice Dept. Besides, those pesky fund covenants require that the money actually be invested in a business.
SPRING, 2001. Situation worsening. We're surrounded by the fetid, rotting hulks of 3,000 dot-coms. All nontech people have left the island. Food is running low. Co-Presidents Bush and Gore (by Election Day, only their mothers and wives could bear to vote for them, so it was a tie), have tried to nationalize the VC hoard, but Microsoft trustbuster-cum-Napster-advocate David Boies, working pro bono, made hamburger of them in front of the Supreme Court.
Hip venture capitalist John Doerr, who now wears only khaki, has come forward with a plan: The VCs will host a Survivor tournament, fashioned on the 278 knockoffs that now represent virtually all of prime-time television. In this eight-week exercise, execs who still have companies will compete in special contests and vote each other off the island until an eventual winner walks away with the whole trillion-dollar enchilada. That sum represents unlimited working capital -- and antitrust problems -- into the next millennium. Sure beats a soap box derby.
WEEK 1. Paranoia and resentment growing. We've learned that Alan Greenspan will helicopter in to judge contests, and all hell has broken loose as competitors suggest themes. Marimba's Kim Polese wants a jazz dance-athon. Jim Clark thinks whoever has the biggest boat should get immunity. Shawn Fanning of Napster demands a marathon Name That Tune. When Linus Torvalds, of Linux fame, pleads that all will be fine if we just stay "open" to each other, Clark throws a hammer at him.
Too small to compete, too mesmerized to leave, I peer out from under abandoned luxury SUVs (no gas anymore) and scurry vermin-like from one browser to the next. It's eerie to realize that a nation once envious of dot-commers now watches us, sneering and cheering via a live, 24-hour Webcast. Who could have known that all those weather-cams and traffic-cams would be put to this horrible use, tracking our every stumble and mis-click? Must...stay low...can't bear to have Peoria relatives see me stripped of my trophy house and PDA. (Until its supplies were exhausted last week, Palm was giving a bag of rice to anyone willing to trade in a Windows CE device).
WEEK 2. Marc Andreessen is gone after a weird bout of island fever. He had taken to buzzing encampments in the Hummer he bought from Arnold Schwarzenegger last year. Tribal council gleefully eliminated him, despite most people spelling both of his names wrong. He stalked off, growling, "I'll be back" and, "Hasta la vista, baby."
Found Larry Ellison operatives poking through my garbage again this morning. Sudden brainstorm: Start planting crumpled up, fictitious correspondence from the reigning Miss Universe with references to "excellent" boyfriends I've fixed her up with. Barter her e-mail address with Ellison for firewood from large pile of ancient teak on grounds of his still half-finished Japanese palace. Have learned rat tastes more like chicken when grilled.
WEEK 3. Andy Grove has settled into the role of the island's grizzled curmudgeon -- not shaving, wrapping a bandana around his neck, making nasty comments. He's particularly cheesed at Meg Whitman of eBay. She's developed quite a nice business helping fellow castaways buy and sell supplies. Andy's gripe: Every time the island's only copy of Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive, changes hands, Meg gets a cut and he doesn't.
Nobody knows what's up with Carly Fiorina: She has been holed up in a garage since the game began. Entire management team of online advice site Epinions Inc. got the boot last night. "Know-it-alls," taunted Grove as they stumbled to the beach. It's worrisome that Linus Torvalds' sandals showed up in an eBay auction, especially since there has been no sign of him in days.
WEEK 4. Doerr's relentless pronouncements that this island represents the largest legal concentration of wealthmongers in recorded history is giving everyone less and less comfort. For one thing, he hasn't lifted a finger to fish. Truth is, all the VCs are looking a little glassy-eyed. With food so scarce, they've been hunting for sustenance in their rare wine collections.
WEEK 5. Bill Gates sent a CARE package this morning by freighter. It had McDonald's Happy Meals and a few hundred million in cash to cover short positions, but we forgot to warn the captain that McNealy and Ellison had mined the harbor. Now everything is coated in a strange stucco-like substance composed of shredded cash and exploded hamburger grease. Yuk!
WEEK 6. Steve Jobs has saved Apple twice more since the contest began, thus winning immunity from the council vote. Apple's entire product line now consists of survival supplies, including turquoise-tinted plastic water jugs that Jobs sells at twice market value. They bear the slogan: Drink Different.
WEEK 7. Is Yahoo!'s Jerry Yang in an alliance? Ellison pretends to taunt him by warbling falsetto "yahoos," but I've seen them off joyriding in Larry's jet. Then yesterday, there was Jerry skateboarding with Fanning, who's obviously taught him how to get that remarkable arc in the brim of his baseball caps.
As for me, I may have a vitamin deficiency. While watching a Webcast of Jobs conducting an Apple sales meeting, I could swear I saw his face morph into that of Marlon Brando's in Apocalypse Now. Note to myself: Check for signs of scurvy, after looking up what they are.
Judgment Day is supposed to be next week. But even though we've weeded out most of those para-pubescent dot-commers, there are still too many deluded digital mouths to feed and the Old Guard's too smart and treacherous to go down easily. Rumor has it we'll soon reinvent ourselves and all will be well. In the meantime, got to keep moving. Stay low. Ellison's losing patience with all the "Respondee unknown" flags he's getting on those fake Miss Universe e-mail addresses. Not good. He has a big sword collection, and I fear I would probably taste like chicken.
POINTERS.If you were marooned yourself and somehow missed the saga of those grumpy, back-stabbing castaways, check out www.cbs.com/survivor for the full update. Silicon Valley was as wrapped up in Survivor as the rest of the country -- with online event planner eVite even developing a Survivor template for Darwinian wannabes so they could digitally arrange to watch the show together and trade rat recipes (www.evite.com).
And all you smart guys, don't scoff at the premise here. The most recent numbers show that VCs remain on a record fund-raising pace in 2000 -- $30 billion in just the first half of the year -- despite the sputtering and gasping IPO market (http://nvca.org/research.html).
Hamilton writes Business Week's Digital Dispatch column Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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